#Multilingualism

[hurricaneforcefan]

Also, you are allowed to do things just because you think they are fun.

thoughts about language-learning

i'm going to tell you something that you may find kind of cringe, especially coming from the mouth of a native english speaker. however, it's true. the trueness of this statement will become clear to you shortly. for now, you're just going to have to lay eyes upon it and accept it.

here it is:

"I like manga and anime" is actually a pretty good reason to learn Japanese.

okay. alright? are we good? let's talk about it.

maybe you read that sentence and your immediate thought was something like, "that seems like a shallow reason to learn a language." maybe you feel that learning a language for the fulfillment of mundane desires is in some way disrespectful. you might think of it as akin to becoming catholic just because you can't get enough of those little biscuits.

well: maybe it is? like, sure. it might be like that. i think that's a discussion you can have. language is, after all, culture—and culture is everything.

but here's the thing:

the only way to acquire a language is through thousands of hours of exposure. and the only reason anyone commits to that sort of thing is if it gets them something that they really really want.

if you want to know what i mean, please follow me to my chambers.

listen:

nobody acquires a language out of pure academic curiosity.

did you know most linguists are monolingual? a linguist might know the grammar, history and even vocabulary of a whole handful of languages like the back of their hand, yet not necessarily be able to speak any of them in a way that's useful on a day-to-day basis. this is because there is a fundamental difference between having an academic understanding of a language and being fluent in a language.

some linguists distinguish between these two kinds of knowledge. they say that the former is the result of "learning" a language, and the latter is the result of "acquiring" a language.

language acquisition is the reason you can read this post and understand it without each sentence feeling like a mental sudoku puzzle. for most of the people reading this, including many of the ones for whom english is a second language, i'm willing to bet that you're not translating what i'm saying word-by-word as you read it. you simply read the words, and the meaning appears in your head, unbidden.

you just get it.

that's what fluency is. that's what it means to acquire a language.

but here's the thing, and it cannot be stressed enough: language acquisition only happens through long-term exposure.

and we're not talking about a little bit of exposure. we're talking about, like, a lot. how many words does a baby have to hear before they figure out how to say their first grammatically-correct sentence? how many before they can understand a whole bedtime story?

of course, your prospects as an adult aren't quite that grim. i mean, a baby also has to learn every single other thing about the world in addition to their first language. a baby has to learn what the hell a dog is before they can truly appreciate the majesty of a Big Red One Named Clifford. in this respect you already have a foot in the door of every language on earth.

still: you don't acquire a language without exposure. and the amount of exposure required is so huge that within a rounding error of zero people will ever get off their ass and do it—unless they have external motivation.

consider two guys:

guy A wants to learn Japanese because it's an interesting language with a rich history and it'll look great on his résumé.

guy B wants to learn Japanese so he can read untranslated yaoi.

i'm sorry to break this to you, but it's simply a fact: guy B is about 10,000× more likely to actually acquire Japanese.

if he does, guy B will definitely come to understand that japanese is an interesting language with a rich history, and it will look great on his résumé. but the main thing is that he will get to read millions of words' worth of raw japanese input, as much as he can possibly stuff his head with, and he'll do so happily because it's what he wanted to do anyway.

that's all i want to get across here. nobody gets good at anything without a good reason. and if acquiring a language is your goal, then what counts for a "good reason" is just whatever gets you to use the language, as much as possible, as often as possible.

∗ ∗ ∗

one more analogy, just to really hammer it in:

i could stand to exercise more. i know that exercise is good for me, and i already own a bike and everything. but the fact of the matter is that abstract rewards like "it's healthy" aren't enough to motivate me to get on my bike.

you know what does motivate me?

the fact that i don't own a car.

if i want to go somewhere, i gotta get on that goddamn bike! the bike is the means by which i am able to fulfill my base desires, such as "food" and "beverages" and "being anywhere at all other than my house".

yet though my desires are base, the benefits of riding a bike nonetheless attend their fulfillment. my stamina is way up, my resting heart rate is down, and my pant legs keep getting caught on my big-ass calves.

as with the bike, so with japanese.

over the past few weeks i've read a half dozen novels in japanese. for the most part, it's all stuff i would have been thrilled to read in english. but most of those books had no english editions; and for the ones that did—well, that would have amounted to Buying A Car.

∗ ∗ ∗

anyway, that's all i wanted to say. if i were you, i wouldn't construe anything in this post as advice, per se. these are just observations of things i believe strongly (and from experience) to be true.

in particular, one thing i don't think you should take away from this post is the idea that academic language study is pointless. it's super pointful! it's just that it's step one of a multi-step process.

it's been my experience that a lot of people—most people—get stuck at that step and never move on. they study and study and study, but they never get to a point where they feel like they're "ready" to "move on" to reading "real stuff".

if you want my two cents, it's this: i don't think you can get to that point through study alone. i don't think most people are ever going to feel like they're "ready".

you just have to want to do it, and you have to be patient enough with yourself to put up with doing it badly for a long time.

so, like, you might as well be reading about boys kissing or whatever while you work on it, is what i'm saying.

[official-linguistics-post]

'There's joy and excitement': The people reclaiming Jamaican Patwa

"The lesson everybody in the world can learn from speaking Jamaican is that language isn't fixed – play around with languages," says Singh. Music also helped the language gain global status. Junior Marvin, my maternal grandad, was born in Jamaica, but spent his childhood in London and then later moved between the US and Jamaica while pursuing his musical career. As a child, I always admired his transatlantic version of Patwa, which gave him a global Jamaican identity. He would effortlessly switch between his London accent, US accent and the Jamaican language, yet uphold a strong sense of authenticity and respect in the family and amongst his peers. He made the Jamaican language feel like a hidden passport that held together his identity even as he toured the world. "Better mus come," he recently told me, a Jamaican phrase full of optimism meaning greater things are yet to come, as I begin to embark on a new chapter in my life.

Article by Cagney Roberts from September 2024; read on BBC Futures.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Childhood Bilingualism

Bilingual language acquisition, or simultaneous bilingualism refers to the acquisition of two languages simultaneously from infancy

About half the people in the world are bilingual or multilingual

In many parts of the world, bilingualism (or multilingualism) is the norm

The Easier Word

As during monolingual language development, young bilingual children will first acquire what is easy in their languages:

Example: A bilingual child might find a word or structure much easier or more obvious in one language than in the other and use the easier word or the easier structure in both languages.

With time, the child will be able to process more and more language cues and eventually this strategy will be dropped and the correct form will be used in each language.

Short Words

Short words are easier for young children than long words.

Example: Young children shorten words and say nana instead of banana.

If mum's word is shorter than dad's, the bilingual child naturally goes for the shorter option.

Sound Combinations

Some sound combinations are harder to say than others.

Example: Young children change chair to tair.

If the word in one language has complex sound combinations and the equivalent in the other language does not, choosing the word in the other language is much the same as what monolingual children do when they choose a simpler word over a more complex word.

Frequency of Word Use

How often a child has heard a word is important.

Like monolingual children, words which are used all the time are learned first.

Example: Car, or its simplified form tar, is learned before the word van, unless there is more talk about vans in the child's environment than about cars.

Grammatical Structures

Frequency of use and simplicity of grammatical structures.

Examples:

The six verb endings in Italian are acquired very early by monolingual children because there is one ending for each person (I, you, he etc.) and they are used all the time - in present tense, in past tense, for the future and for the conditional.

The German system uses its verb endings all the time as well, but there are only four distinctly different endings for the six grammatical persons, which means that some endings overlap. As a result, German children master the verb system 6 to 12 months later than the Italian children.

There is only one personmarker in English, and it is only used in present tense (he runs). This takes the longest to acquire because it makes verb markings so infrequent in English.

Such differences may be reflected in bilingual children's acquisition. They may show themselves in the child learning a functionally comparable structure first in one language and only a few months later in the other.

In the meantime, the bilingual child might choose to draw on what s/he has already acquired to fill the gap.

There might be aspects of the grammatical development in the Language Other Than English (LOTE) which the bilingual child will never conquer 100%. There isn't much one can do about grammatical structures which are so unsystematic that children need massive amounts of input over many years to fully master them completely. An example of such structures are the article systems in German or French.

Consistency

The parent's consistency in language choice is very important.

Initially, the child will not know what a language is, but only understand that, for example, Mummy and Daddy speak in different ways.

Example: If the mother is consistent with their language choice, it is much easier for the child to realise that everything they say belongs to one system and everything the mother's partner or the grandparents or the staff at the child care centre say belongs to another. In time, the child will learn both systems.

Code-switching

Bilingual children engage in code-switching:

The alternate use of two or more languages within the same utterance or during the same conversation

The alternative used by bilinguals of two or more languages in the same conversation

Situational Code-switching

Also called transactional code-switching

Two different languages are assigned to two or more different situations. An individual may have knowledge of all the languages associated with different situations. Conversational etiquette, however, requires the use of only one language at a time.

Example: Speaking one language at home and switching to another at school.

Examples of Spanish-English Code-Switching

Switching between sentences: “I was going to tell you something. Pero no me acuerdo que, es.��

Switching between sentences—first sentence repeated in the second language: “Ella es bonita. She is pretty.”

Switching in the middle of a sentence: “I just can’t no puedo concentrame con tanto ruido.”

Borrowing & Loanword

Bilingual children also engage in borrowing:

The incorporation of lexical elements from one language in the lexicon of another language

The introduction of single words or short, frozen, idiomatic phrases from one variety into another

A loanword can also be called a borrowing:

Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language.

Example: of an English loanword into Spanish dealing with organizations, restaurants, or institutions is, “Vamos al la United Nations en el carro” or “nos vamos al Disney World a ver a Mickie Mouse.”

Here we see a mixing from Spanish to English with the name of an organization and a restaurant used.

Examples. Spanish borrowing from English: “parqueadero,” “sandwich,” and “garaje.”

Examples. English borrowing from Spanish: are “armada,” “armadillo,” and “bravado.”

Take Note:

Contrary to popular belief, bilingual children acquire all the language milestones within the range of what's normal for monolingual children.

Rate of language development is more likely to be due to the child's abilities and the quality of interaction than hearing two languages as such.

Children who code-switch are not confused, because they are able to use their two languages appropriately with different people. In fact, the ability to switch back and forth between languages is a sign of mastery of two linguistic systems, not a sign of language confusion.

Children as young as 2 are able to code-switch in socially appropriate ways.

Bilingual children do not develop more slowly than monolingual children just because they are hearing two languages. Differences between monolingual and bilingual learners do exist but have nothing to do with delays or impairments.

THEORIES OF BILINGUAL DEVELOPMENT

1. Unitary system hypothesis - the idea that the child initially constructs only one lexicon and one grammar

Evidence for: language mixing similar to codeswitching; lexical items existing in only one language

Evidence against: there is a lot of overlap in the lexicon for each language, and children may have gaps because each language is used in different contexts and they can only learn so many words each day

2. Separate systems hypothesis - the idea that the child builds a distinct lexicon and grammar for each language

Evidence for:

where the two languages diverge grammatically, the child will acquire two different sets of rules

bilingual children select which language to use based on the context

children bilingual in sign language and a spoken language may say a word in one language and sign it in the other simultaneously

“Just remember, when someone has an accent, it means that he knows one more language than you do.” ―Sidney Sheldon, Windmills of the Gods

Sources: 1 2 3

Writing Notes: On Children ⚜ Children's Dialogue ⚜ Writing Notes & References

[b1odeuwed]

forgot if i already asked this here but:

personally i don’t find it hard and i can switch between english and welsh easily but i think it’s because i grew up learning/speaking/writing in both so there’s less complications

oh yeah reblog for bigger sample size thanks x

[blondebrainpowered]

The Far Side, 1983

By Gary Larson

[yandereunsolved]

All right babes. It's my turn to come in

How would the yandere chain feel about a reader speaking a lot of hylian. But they mix it up. Like when you speak a lot of languages and sometimes you mix them up. Like putting english words into Spanish on accident?

That but with hylian.

They'd be more threatened than anything. The fact that reader is able to speak to many different species across Hyrule is worrying. You could be plotting against them or asking for help from a passerby, and they wouldn't understand you. That's why they don't trust you to translate for them. They would rather starve, be harmed, or die than allow you to escape them. That's how precious you are to them.

They get jealous when you converse with other races. It stems from their insecurity and possessiveness. They have banned Wild from leading them to his Hyrule. You are much too friendly with the Zora. Sidon is much too nice to you! He likes to hold your hand, hug you, and swim with you. It's unacceptable. The only reason Sidon wasn't killed by one of the Links is because Wild defended him. Wild never defends anyone The Chain wants to kill because he's so hungry for your attention. So they let him live, for now.

In just everyday situations, they find it a lot more adorable. They'll just give you this starry-eyed look and nod along. You could have been ranting in Zora the entire time, and none of them will correct you. It's like the unspoken rule that if someone falls asleep on you, then you shouldn't move. If you slip into another language, they just go along with it. When you realize you apologize but they insist there's no need for that. As long as you aren't hiding secrets while speaking in a different tongue, they don't quite care what language you speak in.

They'll fight for your attention under the guise of wanting to learn to speak a new dialect. Some of them know bits and pieces of the languages of the different races, and others know only Hylian. So it's most definitely something they bicker over. You have to create a schedule so they can each take a turn learning something about one of those languages.

They all just find it so fascinating. They love it. It's just one of your unique quirks. It's something that makes you, you. And they love all of you, every part—no matter how big or small.

ღ Moony, ignore that this took me so long to answer.

[littlemizzlinguistics]

As an English-as-a-second language teacher, I would never ever ever tell my students that TikTok English isn’t a valid and legitimate use of the language. I tell them that it’s a register of English that has appropriate contexts and inappropriate context, and “here’s how you say ‘no wait, let him cook’” in formal, standard English, or “this phrase that you’re asking me about means this but it should only be used with friends in informal context, there’s a time and a place for TikTok English”, but I’d never tell them not to use it or that it’s not valid.

Today’s internet idioms might be next decade’s “perfectly fine in a business email” idioms and I’m not going to stop my students from learning and embracing all aspects of the language. My job is to teach them the appropriate contexts for different things, and to ready them to use English in different contexts and to be able to use it to their benefits. It’s not to be the arbiter of what parts of the language are “real” or “not real” or to say that they MUST only use certain dialects. That would be doing them a disservice and not fully preparing them for the increasingly English-speaking, rapidly-changing world they’re about to face.

Shakespeare was once written for the unwashed masses who spared a little coin to go see a play in a register of their language that made sense to them. Now it’s the height of sophistication. I’m not here to make those decisions. I’m just here to teach my students to move through the world and to know how to use the language in different situations. I’m not so arrogant as to say “that’s not REAL English” because obviously that’s not true. People are using it, so it’s real English.

I’m here to say stuff like “it’s rizz with your friends, that’s fine. But let’s stick to “style” in your essays for now”

[sofiaflorina2021]

Duolingo Achievements are Stressing Me Out

Huh, Duolingo achievements are stressing me out. Why do I focus on pursuing achievements rather than learning languages themselves? Now I don't care about any achievement. I will only maintain my learning streak, you know, do at least one lesson every day.

[timesweptlyre-cisms]

the sort of bilingualism that plagues my lexicon is so profoundly indistinguishable that i dare not call it such - i dare not refer to them as two separate languages at all. the mere thought of using one without the other for an extended period of time now inundates my senses with a steady pulsing of dread, the way one might register the becoming of a phantom limb. when infants learn to walk, do they think of it as crawling on two of their fours? i understand now the struggle - sudden jolt of imbalance, forced loss of footing. i have as many words to spare as i do limbs to fly. i speak in halves of tongues, not whole, and pray that someone out there understands.

[welcometotheravenclawcommonroom]

Whenever a death eater tried to do legilimens on a bi/multilingual student’s brain, they weren’t able to get much because everything was in an incomprehensible mish-mash of different languages in a pattern completely incomprehensible to the monolingual brain.

[angelic-omega]

Being a polyglot means baking in four different languages just to understand the recipe

[lilmissasap]

a cute lil poem i wrote cus a bitch is lowkey struggling

nothing tastes as good as skinny feels 

except for the pegao at the bottom of the pot, a mixture of char, chicken stock, salt and bay leaf 

nothing tastes as good as skinny feels 

except for lukewarm soda on the beach, syrup dribbling down my chin and sticking my chain to my chest 

and the pineapple upside down cake my grandmother used to make, the kind with canned pineapple circles and syrupy cherries in the center of each pineapple slice 

and coming back from the beach, sun soaked and tired, passing a mango in between lips as we laugh about the juice that drags from our lips 

the last drop of caribbean beer —red stripe— in a can a quick sting, a drop of the islands somewhere we can never return 

nothing tastes as good as skinny feels 

except strawberries late at night, fresh from the carton and sweeter than life itself 

and the mints from the bottom of your grandmothers purse 

and chicken pad thai with extra peanuts 

and laughing over sushi 

and mangonada with a little extra chamoy and guava nectar

and sprite mixed with passionfruit juice on christmas eve in between stolen sips of crémas 

the bites of fried food the salon ladies give you during the five hours in the chair getting your hair braided 

the secret bits of marinade doused in pikliz the aunties slip you before anyone else, their finger pressed against their lips, smiling 

the cookies that come in the circular tin, the same tin that will later be filled with buttons or napkins 

coffee after a sleepless night, eyes hazy with sleep 

the extra diri tante slips you after a poor attempt at speaking kréyol back to her, sealed with a smile and discreet nod that says 'keep practicing and you'll remind me of your cousin'

the bundt cake my aunt makes that i’m positive is laced with something, because when was bundt cake ever this good 

the lemonade the same auntie makes, out of country crock powder and probably too much domino sugar  

sucking the meat off the pit of a mango, gently nibbling, trying to get the last dregs of juice before throwing it away 

welches passionfruit juice paired with stories of a home in the mountains in haiti, the home my father was born into, the home they left behind 

cold cola lacaye and stories about my late grandfather, while my uncles slam dominoes at the table, bald heads bobbing and yelling 

fresh wings off the grill, that my uncles swear arent burned just charred

they taste good anyway, sweet spicy and tangy all at once

the only thing that tastes as good as skinny feels 

is not wasting away in a shell of a body

🩷 reblogs are always appreciated for reach <3

[gutterselkie]

Oh and another poll! Though, to be honest, it has nothing to do with my previous one, I’m just curious about this. I was talking the other day with a family member about how I can’t really translate some Armenian words into English, or how some Armenian words just didn’t exist at all in English/have an English counterpart. So I started to wonder, how common is this?

If you’d like, talk about it in the reblogs, I love learning cool things about other languages

[somerabbitholes]

do you ever journal in your mother tongue instead of english? would love to hear ur thoughts on this

I do. A simple fact of being raised multilingual the way Indians of my generation are is that some subjects and some conversations only make sense in your mother tongue, and some only in English. I think Anuk Arudpragasam spoke about this seemingly very natural bifurcation of language and hence knowledge and feeling in one of his interviews (I think it's this?).

So my choice of language when I journal is most times a reflection of this. But also, lately, it has been a conscious attempt to get myself to think about and articulate things I've subconsciously reserved for English in Marathi (and to a lesser extent, Hindi).

[crwbannwen]

I haven’t ranted about grammar in a while, so I’m going to rant about cases

So if you’re first language English and learning a language that marks cases it can be really intimidating and also seem kind of pointless. I’m here to say that marking cases can help elevate the poetic and narrative potential of a language and why. And also why not to be so put off by it.

So first let’s talk about English. ‘I punched her’ but ‘She punched me’. Why do we change I to me and Her to She? ‘The boy punched the girl’ and ‘the girl punched the boy’ do not change when they change position. So why do pronouns? That’s because we still mark the cases for pronouns in English.

Here ‘I’ and ‘She’ are both nominative (they do the action. They are the ones punching)

And ‘me’ and ‘her’ are accusative (they have the action done to them. They are the ones being punched)

There are more cases than Nominative and Accusative that but we’ll start there.

You see the reason we don’t case mark in some languages (like most of English) is because we rely on word order to show this relationship. Before the verb is nominative and after is accusative (in SVO languages like English at least).

But case marking means you don’t need to keep that word order. Technically if I said ‘me punched she’ because ‘she’ is nominative and ‘me’ accusative we (should) know that she is punching despite being after the verb. (But since we don’t really ever teach that this is a case thing most English speakers would resort to word order for their cases)

But the beauty of this flexibility is that you can adapt your word order to suit the poetic or narrative effect of your sentence. Is ‘she’ getting irritated but we don’t know who she’ll lash out at? Having the ‘me’ last could lead a building suspense to who is it she punches, or using ‘me’ first would emphasise the ‘me’. Additionally is ‘me’ annoying a group of people and it’s just a matter of time before someone punches them? Then having ‘me punched… she…’ could be to create surprise at who finally snapped.

(Why did I make my example sentence so violent…?)

Point is there’s a flexibility that can be powerful and beautiful in the right situation and sentence.

However if you’re learning cases in German and hoped this would help you then I’m sorry… I really am but for some reason that monstrosity of a language (this is said with love) combined its gender marking with its case marking so the flexibility is significantly diminished by the repeated markers across different cases. Masculine nouns are the only nouns case marked for accusative (at least you’ve got flexibility there) and feminine nouns are marked as ‘der’ in both dative and genetive and ‘die’ in both nominative and accusative so there’s almost no space for flexibility in sentence structure.

Why German, why? You couldn’t have… idk, had a different vowel or something for each case as a prefix marker that goes before the ‘der’, ‘die’, ‘das’ so the case and gender were clearer?

(I promise I love German as a language and love learning it… but why does it try to hurt me so?)